Life Is Not a Fairy Tale (12 page)

When the tour was over, everyone was tired and eager to get back home. I was the only crybaby, of course. I cried and cried. Those nine other singers had become my family. I learned something from every one of them. Every night, no matter what had happened earlier that day, we all got on the stage and would “work it out!” I can’t say enough about how awesome everyone was.

As you can see, I am not competitive anymore, not like I was with the girls when I was in school. Now, I just get inspired by
talent.
Those years of envying other girls really taught me that using that negative energy doesn’t work and it doesn’t make you grow. The only person that I compete with is ’Tasia. I’m very hard on myself. I love to sing with good singers because of all they can do with their voices. It feels wonderful to hear my voice against theirs or blend with their voices. I’m always taking notes in my head about my performances and about what I have to do better the next time.

I have come a long way from that envious “ugly” little girl that I used to be. But I’m not talking about my looks. What was probably the ugliest thing about me was that I wanted what other people had. To this day, I don’t know what happened to all those pretty little girls with boyfriends who I used to envy. I don’t know if their baby daddies did the same things that Zion’s daddy did to me. I don’t know if they have children they are raisin’ on their own. Or if they are happily married. I don’t know if they are successful or not. Who knows?
People are people.
And everybody has their highs and lows in life. What I do know is that when I cleansed my heart of being envious and jealous and focused on my life and my music and God, the blessings just started pourin’ in. Probably the most important thing that I have learned after all I have been through is the simplest thing: Give props where props are due!

The experience that I had with the Idols taught me a lot about the difference between being
friends
and
being friendly.
What I have learned is that friends are deeper than the people you are friendly with. With friends there are no barriers. With people you are friendly with, although they are friendly to you, that doesn’t mean that they sometimes don’t have their own interests at heart and their own barriers. The thing about true friends is that they help you to grow and be better people and you do the same for them. Real friends feel like family even though there is no blood relation.

My first real friends
were
family, my cousins, Kima and Kadijah, Aunt Rayda’s daughters. Back in those days, we were like the Three Musketeers. We all had other friends, but we were
family,
and we were always in church together because we were always with our mothers. Kima and Kadijah were like my sisters, and our mothers treated us like triplets. We sometimes wore the same clothes, and once we all got the same baby dolls at Christmastime. We were all happy to get our matching baby dolls. One Christmas, mine was the white version of the doll while Kima and Kadijah had the black version. My mom didn’t say anything about it, hoping that I hadn’t noticed that my baby doll was white. It really hadn’t mattered to me, but Aunt Rayda asked my mama over Christmas dinner, “Why didn’t you get Fantasia the black doll?” Embarrassed, my mother said, “Because they ran out of the black ones and the white ones were all they had left.” In my neighborhood, the white ones were only a last resort. Kima and Kadijah just used to say that my baby was mixed. In my room, there were all types of odd dolls based on when my mother had enough money to get what they had left on the shelf. I had dolls with one leg shorter than the other and dolls with two different shoes. That was when ’Dijah was four, I was five, and Kima was seven. We played house with those babies until they fell apart. I remember those broken-off arms and legs strewn all over my room, reminding me of all those hours of play with my two favorite cousins. It still makes me smile.

Today, Kima, who is twenty-two, has three daughters of her own and is happily married. Kadijah is nineteen and in college. They call me all the time just to check in with me. Although their lives are so different from mine, I know they would do anything for me and I would do anything for them. It’s our memory of those broken doll parts that binds us together, forever.

Another person in my life who really keeps me grounded is my brother Rico. He has been a lifesaver and a friend. Even though he is very proud of me for winning
American Idol,
he doesn’t take this “fame” thing too seriously. When we’re on the road together, everything is a joke with him. We play jokes on each other constantly and we laugh all the time.

Being on the road is the hardest thing I have ever done. I’m constantly losing sleep or having uncomfortable, interrupted sleep. We are traveling on buses, which are nice, but they can leave you feeling cramped, eating fast food, being “on” all day long singin’, smilin’, and signin’ autographs, even when I haven’t had enough sleep and all I really want is a little time to myself. Rico and I keep each other laughing to make it all easier.

One time during this past year when I had worked every single day without a break for weeks, I started to feel like I couldn’t do it anymore and I needed a break. I felt sick and weak. I felt like giving up. My stomach was upset every morning and I could barely walk straight. Rico saw me gettin’ weak and he said to me with the straightest face I have ever seen on him, “I never want to hear you say that you can’t do anything.” He said, “Think of all we have been through. We thought we would never be here, but we
are.
” And he was right.

Although Rico is a joker, he is also a prayin’, lovin’ man who would do anything for me. He is a character who keeps everybody laughing, especially the limousine drivers and the people who work in the hotels and restaurants. But with all that laughter, he still manages to bring home and prayer with him. Rico reminds me of my mama. Keeping him with me on the road reminds me every day about where I come from and where I will return after the last song is sung.

When it comes to thinking about the other people who have made a difference in my life, I think about some of the girls who showed me what friendship is, although in some cases it was fleeting.

I once had a friend named Tamika. She and I were best friends. We were always hangin’ at the Candy Lady’s cart. The Candy Lady sold candy, soda pop, pickles, bubble gum, and ice cream. We called ourselves “the Candy Lady Queens.” I loved Tamika because she was funny and bold and always made me want to be as cool as her, in those days. Our friendship ended when we got to middle school, though, and Tamika started hanging around with the really cool girls, the girls who thought they were gangstas. We called them the “hoodie hoodchicks,” because they wore sweatshirts with hoods trying to look like the tough boys in the neighborhood. When Tamika started hanging with them, we stopped hanging around each other. I was still into church then and wondered why Tamika’s family let Tamika do a lot more than other girls our age could do, like smokin’ cigarettes and cursin’. This was around fifth and sixth grade, when I was only eleven years old. I couldn’t keep up with Tamika and, although hanging around with the hoodchicks seemed excitin’, I knew I could never do those things. I had to let her go. Sometimes I still miss those days going to the Candy Lady with Tamika and eating hard pickles and salty chips.

From when I was fourteen to now, the definition of a friend has changed a lot. When I was fourteen, I would depend on my older friends, like Tonya, to give me a place to stay when I had left my parents’ house and needed a place to go. I remember idolizing the girls who were older than me. They had their own apartments and they had no parents around telling them what to do. They made their own rules and that included letting me stay there doing whatever I wanted. Tonya thought she was being my friend and, in some ways, she was, but when I think about it, I wish she had said no to me and made me go back home to my parents, so I wouldn’t have made all those mistakes that came with living with her. I wish Tonya hadn’t bought those alcoholic drinks for me and told me that they made me an adult, when I was only fourteen years old. I wish she had been the kind of friend who wanted what was really best for me, and not what
I
said I thought was best for me.

As you get older, friends are the people who will share with you, even when they only have just a little more than you. In my life, those were friends like Neek, Shanetta, Tonya sometimes, and my Aunt Sheryl. I remember those days when I had stolen milk and diapers for Zion and I didn’t want to take anything else. I would go for days without eating and Shanetta, Neek, and Tonya would give me five dollars, so I could go get a good meal, like a double cheeseburger, fries, and a drink from Steak ’N’ Shake. I remember Aunt Sheryl would also give me money or bring me a meal with meat and vegetables. The way they shared with me showed that they were real friends; they saw my circumstances and gave to me even when they heard me say I didn’t need it. Now I don’t have to worry about eatin’, but I do still have to worry that my soul is being fed and that is what my friends do for me now. Sometimes it is just allowing me to be my old self without the expectation of me being different even though my lifestyle is different. I need to be able to watch TV at home with Tonya or Neek and be able to talk about how cute the guys are and how fly their cars are without anyone mentioning that now I have the car I want or now I have the house I want. Just allowing me to escape from my new reality is like the five-dollar burger they used to provide. My friends now just need to let me be me. Every stage in my life has brought on new needs and expectations from my real friends. I pray to God that I won’t ever need a five-dollar cheeseburger brought to me when I haven’t eaten in days, but what fills me up is just knowing that Neek and Aunt Sheryl would bring it to me, if I ever needed it, and not even mention what I used to have and that I let it get away from me. They get props from me because our friendship allows us to grow and fall and get back up and through it all, we are the same.

I also eventually learned what a friend is
not.
Someone who is not a friend is someone who will talk about you behind your back or a person who would take from you when they know you don’t have much. A person who is not a real friend may also hit or harm you. When I was younger, “hit or harm” referred to physical actions, but now that I have grown, I realize that people who are your friends would never hurt or harm your reputation by saying anything that would be damaging to you or your career. A real friend would never physically hurt you, of course, but more importantly they would never hurt your chances of progressin’ and takin’ it to the next level. A real friend knows what your dreams for yourself are, and they would do anything they could to help you reach your goals, whether they are professional or personal. That is what true friendship is.

I have to say that my experience with friendships may be unique, because I have had this crazy experience of leaving home to go sing, and so much of my life changed as a result of winning this singing competition. I have the unique situation of becoming “famous” in my late teens and early twenties, when all maturing adults are learning what real friendship is. To be honest, the past year has taken a toll on my friendships, which is something that happens to everyone who goes through a big life change. Events like this just show you who your real friends are, and they show you who was never your friend in the first place. The people who weren’t your friends before and want to be your friends now are always the ones to avoid at all times!

My real friends have stuck around and stood behind me during all of it. And now that I have this “fame” thing, they call me just like nothing ever happened. Even though I may have a new phone number and a new cell phone number, they can still call me just like they always did, just like they did when I lived in the Farmington Apartments. I may not be home as much, my house might be a little bigger, but when they get me—they get
ME.
My real friends call and ask the same things, like who I’m datin’, what does he look like? And what shoes have I bought lately? They tell me about their baby daddies and what’s going on in Farmington and the new shoes they saw at the mall. It is just like it always was. My true friends have my back. My true friends want to know all about what I’m doing on the road besides singin’. My true friends don’t envy me—they just see my new work as a new job that takes a lot out of me. They see me as having a job that includes signing thousands of autographs. My real friends care about me and ask if I’m getting enough rest. My real friends know that sometimes I can’t call them just because I’m catching up on sleep or just trying to have a moment of peace. My real friends know that singin’ is my dream come true. My real friends are happy for me.

Speakin about “real friends,” even my family can’t believe that Toya is still my best friend. Toya is my friend from back in the day. She is from Orangeburg, South Carolina—the deep country. Toya used to be wild, and she used to fight all the time. Toya first met Kima and they used to hang out together. One time, we all went out together and Toya and I realized we were very much alike. We laughed loudly and we were both real. Toya and I started doing a bunch of things together, like getting drunk and going out to meet men or just hanging out at home. We got loud when we got together. People could hear us and feel us a mile away. Toya and I were known as the party girls of High Point.